A twice-weekly syndicated newspaper column on California public affairs.

Monday, June 11, 2018

NEVER MIND CALEXIT; OTHER STATES MAY WANT TO GET RID OF CALIFORNIA

CALIFORNIA FOCUS

FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JULY 3,
2018 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“NEVER MIND CALEXIT; OTHER STATES
MAY WANT TO GET RID OF CALIFORNIA”

Petition
carriers – mostly volunteers -- have been on the streets and in the parking
lots of California for a few weeks now, eager to qualify an initiative for the
next available ballot asking this state’s voters to set a date for a formal
referendum on whether to leave the Union.

The
last time anyone tried something like this, the central issue was slavery and the
brutal Civil War ensued, still the most deadly of all America’s conflicts.

But
that might not happen this time, if California voters decide in a couple of
years to divorce the rest of America.

For there are signs much
of the rest of America might cheerfully let California go, just to get rid of
us.

Perhaps the most
significant of those indications takes the form of a lawsuit that essentially
says California has gotten too big for its britches.

This
isn’t about California’s lifestyle choices or its “resistance” to President
Trump’s administration and its edicts, even though he became President over the
strong opposition of most California voters.

Rather,
it’s about a spate of measures passed in California that impact commerce in and
among other states.

The lawsuit bears the name of a
group of egg and poultry growers in the Canadian province of Quebec, with fully
one-fifth of America’s states either listed as co-plaintiffs or friends of the
court supporting the anti-California action.

“California
is flouting the limits federal law puts on California’s regulatory
reach…California lacks power to regulate agriculture or commerce beyond its
borders, but…California is enacting law after law governing other states’
economies,” says the action, filed in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Essentially,
the Quebecois and 11 states supporting them object to laws like the 2008
Proposition 2, which mandates that eggs and poultry sold in California must
come from chickens that can turn freely in their cages.

The other states also
don’t like California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, aiming to cut
greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. “This standard makes
businesses that sell fuels in California reduce the carbon intensity of their
fuels by 10 percent…,” gripes a friend of the court brief submitted by the
state of Missouri. Essentially, the bill severely cut use of out-of-state
ethanol in gasoline, seriously impacting Iowa and other corn-producing states.

Objecting states also worry that California
may start a contagion affecting their businesses negatively. “Worse still,”
their brief adds, “other states like Massachusetts and Colorado have begun to
follow California’s lead and pass extraterritorial laws themselves.”

In
other words, we dastardly Californians are not only impeding interstate
commerce, we’re setting a “bad” example.

Nowhere is this more
clear than in the Northeast Consortium of states, a region extending from Maine
south to Maryland which automatically adopts California’s smog standards
shortly after they take effect here. This has been a major hindrance for Trump and
the ironically named Environmental Protection Administration he now controls as
they try to eliminate environmental protections begun and inspired by
California.

Moan the objecting
states, “California has become so emboldened by failure to enforce (federal
laws against interstate trade barriers) that it has taken the unprecedented
step of sending agricultural inspectors into other states to register and
inspect.”

The new lawsuit is not totally
unprecedented: Other states have filed actions against specific California
regulations before. But the new case is different.

“This is an escalation,”
says Marcus Ruiz Evans, president of the Yes California! organization now
circulating the pro-secession initiative petitions. “This makes very bold
statements about how California is a threat to America itself.”

The lawsuit, then, seems
to reinforce Evans’ earlier prediction that no civil war, no war of any type,
would follow if California declared its independence.

But a lawsuit against
Californians who demanded (by a 63 percent majority in 2008) that their eggs be
at least something approaching free range is very different from the rest of
the country willingly releasing the state that provides more tax dollars and
military personnel than any other.

Much of the rest of America
may resent California for its salubrious climate, its mix of lifestyles and its
liberal politics, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will cheerily wave
goodbye and good luck if California suddenly decides to secede.

-30-

Email Thomas Elias
at tdelias@aol.com. His book,
"The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the
Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover
fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

No comments:

Post a Comment

About Me

Thomas Elias writes the syndicated California Focus column, appearing twice weekly in 88 newspapers around California, with circulation over 2.2 million.
He has won numerous awards from organizations like the National Headliners Club, the California Newspaper Publishers Association, the Los Angeles Press Club, and the California Taxpayers Association. He has been nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize in distinguished commentary.
Elias is the author of two books, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It" (now in its third edition; also published in Japanese and recently optioned for a television movie) and "The Simpson Trial in Black and White," co-authored with the late Dennis Schatzman.